Swimming Cities: Floating Trash or Modern Pirate Treasure?

Set against the backdrop of a contemporary city skyline, this ramshackle collection of recycled parts looks as much like a half-sunk pirate ship of pile of floating debris as it does a functional floating hobo-style hodgepodge home. But these are not merely a one-time installation or thrown-together art project: this collection of makeshift mobile water homes has sailed the open seas and picked up musicians, performers and other artists along its way.

Swoon is known for on-land street art as well as works featured in prominent galleries around the world, but stepped from stable dry ground into the great blue unknown with a series of sustainable ships made from wood, metal and textiles scraps to float down the Mississippi River – and followed by the even larger European armada shown here (photographed by Tod Seelie).

Like a watery sibling to to the Black Rock City (the home of the annual dry-desert art and performance festival in Nevada), a significant aspect of these works is their interactivity, flexibility and the ways in which they can change over time – both by being built up structurally and acquire additional creative crew members.